I Wonder What Alleged “Horrible City” Milwaukee Thinks of Trump
He claims he said it, but he was talking about voter fraud. Or maybe it was about crime. Or, no, actually he didn’t say it at all, and Milwaukee is great in July.
The Trumpanzees spinning his remarks left out the Brewers' bullpen as what he was REALLY talking about.
By Charles P. Pierce PUBLISHED: JUN 13, 2024 4:37 PM EDT
donald trump holds campaign rally in las vegas
Okay, this is it. I’ve had all I can stands, and I can’t stands no more. From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Donald Trump on Thursday called Milwaukee, where he will be declared the Republican nominee for president this summer, a “horrible city.”
Trump made the comment to House Republicans in a morning meeting on Capitol Hill to discuss campaign strategies, among other GOP priorities, ahead of the 2024 election. His remarks came five days before he is scheduled to visit Racine for a campaign rally.
“Milwaukee, where we are having our convention, is a horrible city,” Trump told the GOP lawmakers, according to a report from Punchbowl News that a spokesman for Trump characterized as “Total bullshit.”
Talk about the man who came to dinner.
This put Wisconsin Republicans in a terrible bind. The state’s GOP loves to run thinly veiled racist ads against Milwaukee, but this is a national deal, and the state’s Republican congressional delegation was thrown into a conniption fit.
U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman of the Sixth Congressional District and U.S. Rep. Scott Fitzgerald of the Fifth Congressional District told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Trump made the comments when speaking about the upcoming election. Grothman said Trump “was concerned about the election in Milwaukee” and said he thought Trump “felt we need to do better in urban centers around the country.” He suggested Trump had concerns that Republicans “didn’t do very well in Milwaukee.”
An aide to Fitzgerald also told the Journal Sentinel Trump’s comments “were about election integrity.”...
U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, a Republican who represents Wisconsin’s Third Congressional District in western Wisconsin, blasted Punchbowl’s reporting, however, saying in a post on the social media platform X that the former president was “specifically referring to the CRIME RATE in Milwaukee.” And Republican U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, who represents the state’s First Congressional District, said “I was in the room. President Trump did not say this. There is no better place than Wisconsin in July.”
If you’re keeping score at home, Trump said it, but he was talking about voter fraud. Or Trump said it, but he was talking about the crime rate. Or, finally, Trump didn’t say it at all, and Milwaukee is great in July. Which it is, even though most of Summerfest has been bumped back to June. (You do get a week of it in July, and I know nothing about any of the main-stage performers, so you’re on your own.) But you don’t get to bad-mouth the ’Wauk to me. It is a city with problems, at least some of which are due to a heavily gerrymandered Republican legislature that likes to use it as a convenient punching bag, especially at election time.
It has been crippled by deindustrialization in the years since I left. When I first arrived, Allis-Chalmers, Allen Bradley, Harley-Davidson, and International Harvester all were thriving, not to mention the four independent breweries dating back in several cases to the mid–nineteenth century. The Harley company is still there, but Allis-Chalmers doesn’t exist anymore. International Harvester moved to non-union Kentucky. As for the breweries, Pabst is headquartered in Texas now. Schlitz sold out, first to Stroh’s and then to Pabst. Miller is owned by Molson Coors. Blatz is produced by Miller under a contract with Pabst. Its lovely old headquarters building now houses condominiums. The city is battered and bruised, but it still doesn’t deserve the contempt of a convicted felon.
I did a lot of my growing up there, and I met people whose impact on my life I can feel to this day. Next year is my fiftieth college reunion. My college campus has grown up a lot. Downtown, the city is now on its third mega-arena. (Still no NHL franchise.) And Milwaukee is a place where the Wisconsin Idea as promulgated by Sen. Bob La Follette and some other smart people in Madison still lives, despite all the Bradleys, and Uihleins, and Johnsons, and Walkers, and Grothmans, and Van Ordens who have tried to squash it out forever. If the city makes El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago nervous, he can stay down in his decaying Xanadu by the rising sea. He probably can’t leave the state anyway.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politic...milwaukee/
He claims he said it, but he was talking about voter fraud. Or maybe it was about crime. Or, no, actually he didn’t say it at all, and Milwaukee is great in July.
The Trumpanzees spinning his remarks left out the Brewers' bullpen as what he was REALLY talking about.
By Charles P. Pierce PUBLISHED: JUN 13, 2024 4:37 PM EDT
donald trump holds campaign rally in las vegas
Okay, this is it. I’ve had all I can stands, and I can’t stands no more. From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Donald Trump on Thursday called Milwaukee, where he will be declared the Republican nominee for president this summer, a “horrible city.”
Trump made the comment to House Republicans in a morning meeting on Capitol Hill to discuss campaign strategies, among other GOP priorities, ahead of the 2024 election. His remarks came five days before he is scheduled to visit Racine for a campaign rally.
“Milwaukee, where we are having our convention, is a horrible city,” Trump told the GOP lawmakers, according to a report from Punchbowl News that a spokesman for Trump characterized as “Total bullshit.”
Talk about the man who came to dinner.
This put Wisconsin Republicans in a terrible bind. The state’s GOP loves to run thinly veiled racist ads against Milwaukee, but this is a national deal, and the state’s Republican congressional delegation was thrown into a conniption fit.
U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman of the Sixth Congressional District and U.S. Rep. Scott Fitzgerald of the Fifth Congressional District told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Trump made the comments when speaking about the upcoming election. Grothman said Trump “was concerned about the election in Milwaukee” and said he thought Trump “felt we need to do better in urban centers around the country.” He suggested Trump had concerns that Republicans “didn’t do very well in Milwaukee.”
An aide to Fitzgerald also told the Journal Sentinel Trump’s comments “were about election integrity.”...
U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, a Republican who represents Wisconsin’s Third Congressional District in western Wisconsin, blasted Punchbowl’s reporting, however, saying in a post on the social media platform X that the former president was “specifically referring to the CRIME RATE in Milwaukee.” And Republican U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, who represents the state’s First Congressional District, said “I was in the room. President Trump did not say this. There is no better place than Wisconsin in July.”
If you’re keeping score at home, Trump said it, but he was talking about voter fraud. Or Trump said it, but he was talking about the crime rate. Or, finally, Trump didn’t say it at all, and Milwaukee is great in July. Which it is, even though most of Summerfest has been bumped back to June. (You do get a week of it in July, and I know nothing about any of the main-stage performers, so you’re on your own.) But you don’t get to bad-mouth the ’Wauk to me. It is a city with problems, at least some of which are due to a heavily gerrymandered Republican legislature that likes to use it as a convenient punching bag, especially at election time.
It has been crippled by deindustrialization in the years since I left. When I first arrived, Allis-Chalmers, Allen Bradley, Harley-Davidson, and International Harvester all were thriving, not to mention the four independent breweries dating back in several cases to the mid–nineteenth century. The Harley company is still there, but Allis-Chalmers doesn’t exist anymore. International Harvester moved to non-union Kentucky. As for the breweries, Pabst is headquartered in Texas now. Schlitz sold out, first to Stroh’s and then to Pabst. Miller is owned by Molson Coors. Blatz is produced by Miller under a contract with Pabst. Its lovely old headquarters building now houses condominiums. The city is battered and bruised, but it still doesn’t deserve the contempt of a convicted felon.
I did a lot of my growing up there, and I met people whose impact on my life I can feel to this day. Next year is my fiftieth college reunion. My college campus has grown up a lot. Downtown, the city is now on its third mega-arena. (Still no NHL franchise.) And Milwaukee is a place where the Wisconsin Idea as promulgated by Sen. Bob La Follette and some other smart people in Madison still lives, despite all the Bradleys, and Uihleins, and Johnsons, and Walkers, and Grothmans, and Van Ordens who have tried to squash it out forever. If the city makes El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago nervous, he can stay down in his decaying Xanadu by the rising sea. He probably can’t leave the state anyway.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politic...milwaukee/
